History of a Traction Engine

click here to enlarge

editor's notes:-
1. Gill Williams (of Hankelow) has a brother who resides in the Nottingham area and has sent a copy of this account from the 'Road Locomotive Society Journal' – which has a mention of an Audlem Agricultural Engineer!
2. Peter Cauley (business partner to Bob Lee (deceased) and current owner) confirms that this arrived in the late 1960s but failed a boiler test (no leaks in a cold water test at 1.5 x working pressure). Its components are still substantially there – possibly beyond renovation!
3. In discussion with Olly Woodcock – who was in the middle of testing a different traction engine – Cheshire is seen as an epicentre of traction engines these days!

On the Road Again With Frank Jones

Notes by Allan C Baker and Peter Smart

1 & 2. The Mann's Patent Cart & Wagon Company five ton compound tractor in the first two photographs, is an engine very well known to one of the authors, as for several years in the mid-1960s, he had charge of it, covering several 100 miles to events in North Staffordshire and South Cheshire. The engine, maker's No. 1287, was new in 1918 for F. H. Smith & Sons of Brigg in the north of Lincolnshire, although by the following year, it was for sale. The new owner was J. S.Enderby of nearby Elsham, when it was registered BE 5240, but last licensed under that number in December1922. As to what happened next, Alan Duke's lists are silent, until November 1939 that is, by which time it was with F. I'Anson of South Church, a suburb of Bishop Auckland in County Durham and registered as FU 5027. A later owner is recorded at H. l'Anson at Bishop Auckland, but we surmise that in fact, so far as the engine's location is concerned, they are one and the same. When Frank took his photographs in April 1953, he recorded the owner as just l'Anson and the location as South Church. Notice that it isH. I'Anson, whose name appears on the bunker. By March 1956, the engine had moved to L. Lacenby of Pickering in North Yorkshire and it was from there, in 1959, that Richard D. Howle (always known as Dan) of Red Street, Chesterton in Newcastle-under-Lyme purchased it. However, the engine was in fact, owned by a consortium of members of the then recently formed North Staffordshire & Cheshire Traction Engine Club and it was Christened "TINY TIM". Dan by the way, was the Club'sfirst Chairman.

We can vouch for the fact that the engine had a very hard life and although it was rallied for several years up to about 1968 or 1969, the boiler pressure had been gradually reduced to 120lbs per sq. in. and the noise from the extensively worn gears was deafening! Nevertheless, it soldiered on until the firebox plates became so thin that continued operation was no longer an option. It then passed to Bob Lee of Audlem where it was dismantled, with the intention of a complete rebuild, which in the event, never took place and so far as we are aware, it still there in its dismantled state. A shame, as not many of these Mann tractors have survived and this one has the maker's patent arrangement of a shifting single eccentric valve gear, whereby the eccentric can be moved radially on the crankshaft, to give forward and reverse motion, as well as adjusting the cut-off. Ronald H. Clark in his Development of The English. Traction Engine, mentions that only the firm's single cylinder and tandem compound engines had this form of valve gear. He also mentions that it occupies more room on the crankshaft than the two eccentrics of Stephenson's link motion, the inference being that this was the reason. However, there is absolutely no-doubt that this engine has the single eccentric reversing valve gear.